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June 3, 2015

Benedict Option Round-Up

UPDATE: This is now a "Page" with it's own tab at the top, which I will update regularly.

Rod Dreher, at The American Conservative (among other places) is well-known, especially among conservative-leaning Christians (of whatever stripe) for his books Crunchy Cons, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, and How Dante Can Save Your Life. Dreher's next project, which will eventually be in book form, currently consists of a wide-ranging discussion on what he calls the "Benedict Option." In essence, such a project takes as its starting point Alasdair McIntyre's final words in his book "After Virtue," which consist of his prediction that:

What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.

What Dreher is about, in fostering conversation and in writing his book, is attempting a vision, and perhaps "marching orders," so to speak, regarding how Christians ought to respond to McIntyre's statement in formation of local forms of community. In other words, what will Christians do to form them, in what would the consist, how can Christians survive, is it physical sequestration or ideo-political, or partaking of both...and so forth...

Because of the sheer volume of posts on the matter, I am attempting here to give a decent list of the various discussions on the issue, from Dreher himself and from others, who are engaged in the discussion. If I miss any, please leave comments - I've done my best from Google and other sources, ordered from the most recent posts to the earliest I can find.